Straight Talk iPhone Review

Now that I've had my iPhone on and working (mostly) or a few days, I thought I'd do a little write-up about how it is.

Phone: iPhone 4S *locked
Carrier: AT&T

First of all, I bought my phone on Amazon from the marketplace. A woman was upgrading to the iPhone 5 and was selling her old phone. No problem, easy transaction and it arrived quickly. Read the descriptions, email the sellers and ask questions to have the best experience on that end. If you choose an AT&T phone, it can be locked and it will still work on Straight Talk.

Next, I went to Walmart's website and ordered a Straight Talk microSIM card for AT&T phones. It was $6.99 and I did site to store to get free shipping since home shipping would have been more than the price of the SIM - this was true on Straight Talk's website as well.

Once the phone and the SIM card arrived (about a week later), I followed the directions included with the SIM card. You simply use a paper clip to open the slot on the right side of the phone, pop out the AT&T card, insert the Straight Talk card and then go online. It's really easy to transfer your service and remaining days if you're already a Straight Talk customer. Once your old phone stops working, you restart the iPhone and it starts working. However, there is NOTHING on either phone that indicates when one stops working and the other begins, at least not for the model of phone that I had, so I was watching the "port in progress" thing in my Straight Talk account. Once it said it was finished, I restarted the iPhone and was good to go. It did take about 3 hours.

Once that was complete, I didn't have data. Surprise! So I went through a whole bunch of internet BS until I found a site that walked you through the process. I can never top his tutorial, so here's a link to how to get your data (and mms) working on your Straight Talk iPhone. 

Please note that for the mms portion of his tutorial, you need a t-mobile SIM card, which nobody probably has, so I skipped that part and cannot comment on whether or not it works. ***SEE NOTE AT BOTTOM OF POST

So, as promised, here's my (condensed) opinion on the Straight Talk iPhone:

Pros:
-It's an iPhone and because of that, the phone itself is sooo much better than my old phone.
-You have access to all the iPhone apps
-It costs a lot less than a regular iPhone plan
-Good call quality
-Good coverage in my house (we'll see if it works everywhere else)

Cons:
-No MMS messaging *** SEE NOTE AT BOTTOM OF POST
-Data seems slow to me, but I've never had a regular cell phone plan to compare it to. The computer is definitely faster in terms of internet speeds, but the data is faster on the iPhone than on my first Straight Talk phone. Guess I'm spoiled by using the computer most of the time.
-No SWYPE - Please note this is the ONLY feature I enjoyed on my Android phone
-I've been told it doesn't show on the screen when you have a voice mail. I'll see if that's true. I've never had visual voicemail, so I don't know what that is, but I've heard you don't get that on the iPhone either.

So basically if you're not a phone snob and you're relatively new to the smart phone scene like I am, Straight Talk on an iPhone will probably be just fine for you. However, if you're used to your $100/month plan with all the bells and whistles and support that comes with it, you may find Straight Talk to be what it is - a bargain plan that cuts out some of the fat to keep costs down.

*** NOTE: 4 days after my phone was set up I got a settings update from StraightTalk. It changed the little logo at the top to say TFW instead of HOME and now my MMS works magically. No T-mobile SIM swap needed. :-D Hooray!!